Bull

That is the most hillarious tagline I've ever seen. I embellished a little bit. It was MLB.com's Maggie Gray takes an in-depth look at Milton Bradley's injury. I like mine better.

Seriously A quick look at the 40 man shows that our options are Fox or Fuld. On another note, how are there no other infielders or catchers on the 40 man roster? Not that I want a return to the days of 12 middle infielders on the 40 man, but this is ridiculous.

MLB.com's Maggie Gray takes an in-depth look at Milton Bradley's groin

I like sham poo

dingdingdingdingding. We have a winner.

Out of the 4 that picked the Cards to win the division, 2 had them losing in the WS and 1 had them winning it all. WTF? :-k I don't know where any of that is coming from. By the way, this morning Mike and Mike gave their predictions for the season. Greenberg picked the Cardinals to win the division and had the Cubs missing the playoffs (I think . . . he might have had them getting the WC) and Golic had the Cubs winning the division. I guess anything CAN happen.

Also, the Royals. It made sense before they deleted two pages of comments still makes sense to me!....... ?

in their prime or today? I think Bonds was quicker. Sheffield's entire approach at the plate was more violent and involved more movement, but I think Bonds always had the quicker bat. Can't disagree. Bonds had the quicker bat, but I've never seen anybody with quicker wrists then Gary Sheffield. Eric Davis. Quickest hands ever.

Theo has me worried. [/irrational panic]

Also, the Royals.

Bradley's bat is obviously much better than DeRosa's, but Bradley isn't taking DeRosa's ABs. He's taking Edmonds' ABs from last year. DeRosa's ABs will be taken by Aaron Miles and whoever replaces Bradley in right when Milton gets hurt. But I do appreciate Bradley's bat - I hope he's healthy all year. Mike Fontenot says, "Hi." Fontenot will take Fontenot's at bats, and some of DeRosa's. But my bet is Miles will have more PA than Fontenot will have increased PA. That's fine...but an awful lot of Miles' at bats will be replacing Ronny Cedeno. Right on Tim. Jersey, if you do that you have to go all the way, because looking at it that way, Bradley will take some of derosa's at bats. in fact, Bradley, Fuku, Fontenot, Miles, and Gathright will take the at bats of Edmonds, Derosa, Fukudome, Fontenot, Cedeno. Bottom line is its the dispersion of the positions CF, RF, 2B. If Fukudome performs and Bradley stays healthy its a non-issue. If either do not, then it becomes an issue. Personally, all things considered I prefer the 2008 5-some over the 2009 version, but not over the projected performance of the 2008 group in 2009.

severe sophomore slump for Geovanny Soto. As in, he is bottom half of nl catchers in OPS.

No, you are absolutely not the only one. I was about the post pretty much the same thing. This is going to sound overly dramatic, but it's like my love of baseball died last October. Sure, that always happens when my teams lose like the Cubs did, and usually the excitement comes back a few months before the next season starts. Didn't happen this year. I have no interest in buying tickets. Usually by this time I have tickets lined up for several Cubs-Cards games at Busch. I haven't even looked. I attribute some of it to my mind being on hockey, but mostly I think it's that last summer was so perfect, and the way it was ruined just makes me think I'm not read for another six month investment in these guys. EDIT: But talk to me in June. Or May. Or next week. :) I am mostly on the same ship. I think most seasons you can get really excited, because each year might be the one in which everything falls into place and the team dominates all season. Well that happened last year, and it ended just as miserably as any playoff disappointment. The the symetry of the 100 year anniversary probably added to the anticipation (yeah I know this is the wrong board for sentiment like that). This year it feels more like I have to wait out a long season to see if anything positive will happen, because it's unlikely that the regular season could be anywhere near as great as last year. Having said that, I've been checking in more freqently each day we get closer to opening day. And I'm sure within a few days I'll have a seriously vested interest again. yup. that's it right there. we've seen the best Cubs team of our lifetime (last year) and the best potential team (2004). We've seen it where everything falls into place and we've seen what should have been. Nothing this year produces can compare EXCEPT playoff wins. to me, the season begins in October. Holy Crap, I sound like a Braves fan. I hate myself.

In 2003 they might have won less games, missed the playoffs, but kept Woody and Prior's arms attached to their bodies for a few more years.

yeah! a tie!

Gathright is going to make the team. As long as Miles can play short stop and 3b from time to time, Gathright might be the best thing for the team. Between he, Taguchi, and German,their bats seem to be similar. However, Gathrights amazing speed is a great asset to have and when chosing between 3 mediocre at best bats, that could be the deciding factor. If Lou was looking for a better offensive palyer, he would have gone with Fox or Snyder, depending if he wanted a lefty or a righty, but with them both out of the running, its clear hes looking for other weapons. To be honst, Im not sure any of the 3 are any better of an option than Sam Fuld, who is at that age when its time to either give him a shot or let him go to another team who he might stand a chance with. Fuld in 28 ABs .250/.364/.500 2 HR Gathright in 45 ABs .244/.358/.244 7SB So in 38 ABs .263/.404/.368 Easy there. Way too many short white guys on this roster already.

They'd be ok if we had Cal Ripken Jr at short, but since they'll actually be playing there, it is a bit of a concern. Add to the fact there's significant suspicion whether Theriot will repeat last year's performance...... Yeah, I'm scared.

It's actually 7: Wells, Hart, Johnson, Blanco, Germain, Snyder, and Taguchi. And a Mark Peel sighting on Bruce's blog. Cubsfan26 asked about the possibility of sending Gaudin down. The first reply to that was from mlp, which I'm fairly certain is Peel because the response has the detail about the waivers process that Mark had here. Was Peel Cubs2003 here?

i don't think there's a good chance of that at all. except for the broken wrist year, lee has been very durable, and ramirez has missed an average of 16 games the last 3 seasons. there's a good chance that a couple of those guys will miss significant time, but really it's pretty unlikely that lee and ramirez miss a significant chunk of the season. You're fighting the hypo. The question is whether ARam, Bradley, and Soriano are all healthy. The assumption is that Lee isn't healthy. So, in the hypo that's been presented, which assumes Lee isn't healthy, Soccer10k says we'll still be fine "if ARam, Bradley, Soriano, and Soto are healthy." I don't think it's unreasonable to expect one or more of ARam, Bradley, and Soriano to be out at the same time as our hypothetically injured Lee. ETA - I missed the ARam thing the first time through. I noticed you included his '06 season (in which he missed 5 games), but conveniently stopped short of including his first '05 campaign, in which he missed 39. In his 5 full years with the Cubs, he's missed 17, 39, 5, 30, and 13. ARam's a great player, but how much are you willing to wager that he'll play more than 145 games this year? He's had plenty of health issues, just like Bradley and Soriano. wow that's the most delicate, emotionless, logical, stick-it-to-em response I've ever seen here.

Surfing the internet is "work friendly"? Sure it is. Taking time out to surf the net every now and then helps people relax, therefore making them more productive during the rest of the day. Reasonable, but good luck selling it to your boss. As the boss, I encourage it!

http://www.fangraphs.com/wins.aspx?date=1979-05-17&team=Cubs&dh=0&season=1979

bball? really? I like the rule. makes it friendly for work.

What more does he need to build on? Theriot is cheap and gives you above average offensive production at SS. . Defense. Theriot might give you slightly above average offense for the shortstop position, but well below average defense. that's wrong. he's not well below average defensively. Nor is he slightly above average offensively. OPS+ under of 72 and 93 in his only two full seasons. They said slightly above average for the SS position. An OPS+ of 93 might be lower than the average player overall, but Theriot was 31 points better in OPS than the average major league SS last year because he was 61 points better in OBP than that average SS. Offense has to be broken down by position just as much as defense does or else the people in the harder positions (C, SS, 2B, CF) will never get their value to the team properly evaluated since 80% of the hitters at those positions are below average when compared to the league as a whole and not just their positions. I totally understand the concept...just failed to read the previous post and missed "for the shortstop position"

What more does he need to build on? Theriot is cheap and gives you above average offensive production at SS. . Defense. Theriot might give you slightly above average offense for the shortstop position, but well below average defense. that's wrong. he's not well below average defensively. Nor is he slightly above average offensively. OPS+ under of 72 and 93 in his only two full seasons.

Thanks for all your hard work Tim. From the times of a few Cubs.com refugees coming over in small wooden crafts, this has been a great place to discuss the Cubs.